Serials

Cliff-hanging serials have been a favorite addiction of audiences since long before modern TV sizzlers like "Dallas" and "Knots Landing" sparked such quandaries as "Who shot J.R.?" and "Is Abby really gone forever?" The right combinations of heroes, heart-throbs, villains, vixens, sex, scandal, mystery and adventure keep us mesmerized by the tube week after week, just as our parents and grandparents once were hopelessly hooked on suspense-filled dramas of the radio and the big screen.

Love binge-watching Netflix in your pajamas? Now you can get paid for it. Netflix is hiring a “tagger” to be based in the U.K. that will be tasked with watching movies and TV shows, describing them and adding keywords to enhance the streaming service's recommendations. The person hired will work in concert with algorithms already designed to pick shows based on a watcher's viewing history. The candidate will work flexible hours from home, according to the job posting. A degree...

Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon braves mad emperors and death rays in wildly improbable space adventures while his girlfriend, Jean Rogers as Dale Arden, screams and faints by turns. Frances Gifford as Jungle Girl awes a generation of adolescent males as she wards off witch doctors, wild animals and an evil uncle, all the while wearing a miniskirt that anticipates fashion by nearly 30 years. You can almost smell the popcorn. These were the good old days of the movie serial,...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican police have detained a man who allegedly murdered four children and a woman in a small town in the center of the country, authorites said on Saturday, as statistics show a marked increased in the number of women being murdered. The state attorney's office in the town of San Luis Potosi said Filiberto Hernandez, 43, was detained on Thursday and confessed to five murders between 2010 and 2013. The office said he also raped his victims. The crimes...

Created more than 50 years ago, the futuristic Flash Gordon serials of Saturday matinee legend continue to fascinate modern audiences. Yet recently many episodes had disappeared from the video market, and those that could be found were so poorly duplicated that the tapes were barely watchable. Now, in cooperation with Hearst Entertainment (formerly King Features), which published Alex Raymond's original Flash Gordon comics, Questar Video has restored and enhanced six hours` worth...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A serial killer facing the death penalty for murdering 10 women in Los Angeles was found guilty by a jury on Thursday of four more counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of women he strangled between 1987 and 1997, prosecutors said. The jury deliberated for less than a day before convicting Chester Turner, 47, a former pizza delivery man, of the four murder counts. All 14 of the women Turner killed were found strangled in...

By John Hammerle For RedEye and John Hammerle is a RedEye special contributor | October 25, 2008

There's an old saying that goes, "If it's Halloween, it must be 'Saw.' " OK, so maybe that's just the trailer for "Saw IV," but after five years, with a new movie each year, the "Saw" franchise practically owns the holiday. The "Saw" films might not be high art, but they certainly are consistent, cheap and profitable. But what makes them so addictive? Past horror franchises may provide the clues. Saw 5 films (and counting) Synopsis: A series of characters are kidnapped and placed in deadly,...

(Reuters) - Illinois investigators trying to put names to the last unidentified victims of executed serial killer John Wayne Gacy have solved the unrelated 1978 disappearance of another man, officials said on Wednesday. Edward Beaudion, 22, was killed the night he was last seen in July 1978 and dumped in a Cook County Forest Preserve area southwest of Chicago by a man police questioned at the time, the Cook County Sheriff's Office said in a statement. ...

And now, a quiz for the film fans of yesteryear. From the 1930s to the early 1950s, where could moviegoers be certain of hearing the following bits of dialogue? -"Look! This must be the secret storehouse!" -"This is an invention, gentlemen, that will put an end to all war." -"The man is insane, commissioner! There's no telling what he`ll do next." -"We`ve got enough explosives here to blow the Empire State Building into the Atlantic!" -"This...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Two Southern California men have been charged with murder in the slayings of four women over the last six months, after the body of one victim was found on the conveyor belt of a recycling center in the city of Anaheim, police said on Monday. The two suspects, Franc Cano, 27, and Steven Dean Gordon, 45, both registered sex offenders from Anaheim, were booked on suspicion of murder late on Friday and remained held without bail, Anaheim police...

1. The idea of opening each film with descriptive paragraphs was taken directly from the "Flash Gordon" serials, even down to the design of the lettering. 2. The quick wipes and dissolves used as transitions between scenes were also commonly used in serials. 3. Some scenes of interplay between R2-D2 and C-3P0 were inspired by Akira Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress." Lucas even included an in-joke about this in "Star Wars": Darth Vader silences an insolent Imperial...

Tobey Maguire 's Material Pictures and producer Alexandra Milchan are developing the serial-killer drama "The Red Mohawk." Based on a book by Anonymous, the story centers on a murderer called The Red Mohawk who has the head of a skeleton. A French edition titled "Psycho Killer" was published in October by Sonatine Editions in Paris. Maguire and Matthew Plouffe are producing with Milchan. Anonymous also penned "The Book With No Name," "The...

Edmund S. Przybylski, 77, longtime director of the Learning Resource Center at Loyola University, died April 26 of a heart attack at St. Michael's Hospital in Stevens Point, Wis. Mr. Przybylski was familiar to many students and faculty of Loyola, where he worked as the center's director from 1968 to 1985. Besides his regular duties as a librarian, he handled the technological aspects of the center. Prior to his work at Loyola, he was the director of the Learning Resource Center at the University of Wisconsin at...

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A man once believed to be one of Sweden's worst serial killers was freed by court order on Wednesday after spending two decades confined in a mental institution after a string of false murder confessions. In a series of trials between 1994 and 2001, Sture Bergwall was convicted of eight murders, despite there being no forensic evidence or witness statements, and confessed to many more. But Bergwall, 63, later recanted his...

Joan Alexander, a leading radio actress of the 1940s best known for playing Lois Lane, the ace reporter who was constantly being rescued from peril by Superman, died Thursday at New York Presbyterian Hospital of an intestinal ailment. She was 94. After an early modeling and stage career, Ms. Alexander became a versatile performer on dozens of radio serials, notably as the loyal secretary Della Street in "Perry Mason." She played recurring characters on radio soap operas and dramas including "Lone Journey," "Light of...

A man prosecutors called a serial rapist and murderer was sentenced to 90 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections today for the first of multiple brutal attacks that he's been charged with, authorities said. Cook County Judge Joseph Kazmierski sentenced Michael A. Johnson, 28, today at the Leighton Criminal Court building after being convicted of two counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault and one count of aggravated battery/great bodily harm in...

Actor Brad Maule, who spent 19 years as Dr. Tony Jones on "General Hospital" but has been on recurring status since 2000, began playing Dr. Abel, a Los Angeles-based obstetrician, on "Passions" on Friday. Maule is scheduled to appear in only 10 episodes but hopes the role will be expanded. If not, the actor may return to "GH," where he earned two Emmy nominations. As the fallout from "Port Charles"' cancellation continues, it doesn't appear likely that Lynn Herring and Jon Lindstrom will reprise...

Rainn Wilson , David Morse , Mike Vogel, Zuleikha Robinson and Bill Sage have been added to the cast of the SpectreVision production of " The Boy ." SpectreVision partners Elijah Wood, Daniel Noah and Josh C. Waller are producing the serial-killer origin trilogy starring Jared Breeze of "Cooties. " Principal photography launched Feb. 17 in Colombia, on the first movie, based on a short film "Henley," which appeared in competition at the 2012 Sundance...

In regard to Dr. Mark Krug's letter published Sept. 12, criticizing WTTW- Channel 11's programming policies and the constant appeals for money, we agree with his perceptive criticism of the latter but must take exception to his observation that Channel 11's programming is not uniformly excellent. Dr. Krug correctly praised such shows as the "McNeil-Lehrer News Hour" and the "Washington Round Table," but expressed dismay at the numerous serials and animal programs. However, the variety of...

SpectreVision partners Elijah Wood , Daniel Noah and Josh C. Waller will produce "The Boy," a serial-killer origin trilogy starring Jared Breeze of "Cooties." Principal photography will start on Feb. 17 on the first movie, based on a short film "Henley," which appeared in competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival . The trilogy is aimed at tracking the childhood of a future serial killer, depicting the character at ages 9, 14 and 18 and...